by Rajiv Joseph
Humayun re-enters. He’s cleaned himself up a bit.
HUMAYUN: What’s wrong, what are you doing?
BABUR: Got blood on my face.
HUMAYUN: You’re covered in blood. We both are. Babur . . .
Babur is nearly slapping himself, trying to remove one tiny stain, even though he’s drenched in blood.
BABUR: Won’t come off! It won’t come off!
HUMAYUN: Babur! BABUR, STOP! HEY!
Humayun grabs Babur in a bear hug to get him to stop. Babur stops, shudders, slowly falls into Humayun, suddenly overwhelmed with everything.
BABUR: (with deep grief) It’s terrible what we did...
Humayun gently brings Babur to the floor, where they kneel together.
HUMAYUN: Hey. Hey, look at me.
Babur is traumatized. Humayun touches his face, gently, almost as if Babur were a child, waking from a nightmare.
HUMAYUN: I’ll wash your face, okay?
Humayun goes to a clay urn and brings it beside Babur, sitting, head in his hands.
HUMAYUN: It’s warm, the water is warm.
Humayun pours the water slowly over Babur’s head. He does it again, smoothening out Babur’s hair, trying to comfort his friend. He pours another cup. It resembles a baptism.
Humayun takes Babur’s shirt off. He dries him off. He gets Babur clean clothes and slowly, gently, like a parent with a child, helps Babur clean and dress himself. Humayun sings a tuneless song to Babur as he does, softly, barely heard . . .
HUMAYUN: (singing softly) Ohhhh Babu . . .
Babu Babu Babu . . .
Babu Babu Babu . . .
As Babur becomes fully dressed . . .
HUMAYUN: This morning, when we turned around to look . . .
When we saw Tajmahal . . .
I thought the moon had fallen.
I thought the moon had crashed in the river.
BABUR: It’s prettier than the moon.
HUMAYUN: No. It’s not.
SCENE 3.
Lights up on the same guard post as the start of the play.
Babur enters, ready to guard his post. He looks haggard.
There is the distant cacophony of the chopping, the screaming, the hissing and so forth. Everything gets louder.
Humayun enters, and sees Babur. He approaches him from behind, but Babur doesn’t notice, lost in a nightmare.
Humayun calls out to him by name, but he cannot be heard over the sounds . . . He calls again . . . finally . . .
HUMAYUN: BABUR! BABUR! BABUR!
The sounds cut out entirely. There is just the sound of night. Maybe a cricket.
Babur turns around and stands guard. Humayun as well, takes his post.
HUMAYUN: You’re here. You’re on time.
(beat)
BABUR: I had a terrible dream.
HUMAYUN: (barely able to conceal) I have some good news!
BABUR: Worst nightmare of my life, bhai.
HUMAYUN: Do you want to tell me the dream first, or can I tell you the good news that I have?
BABUR: It was about aeroplats.
HUMAYUN: Okay, so your dream . . .
BABUR: They were so loud, they made a terrible sound. And there were hundreds of them. They were weapons, the aeroplats themselves were actually weapons, flying weapons, and . . . I mean, think about it, Huma . . . with aeroplats, you could defeat any army of men on elephants without a problem.
But, these were the aeroplats of a distant army. And they were coming for us.
HUMAYUN: For us?
BABUR: For Hindustan. And do you know how they would know when they found us? Guess.
HUMAYUN: I don’t know.
BABUR: Guess.
HUMAYUN: I don’t know, I don’t know how aeroplats work!
BABUR: Tajmahal. They’ll see it, shining like the moon, and the first thing they’ll destroy is that. And so the emperor stood above us. And he told us that there was a large piece of cloth. The biggest in the world. It was black . . . it was just like the transportable hole, Huma, and he told us, if we could all grab a piece of this fabric, and run with it, it would billow and lift, and we could drape it just so over Tajmahal, and hide Tajmahal. Hide it from the aeroplats.
And so we ran to the cloth, and we all tried to grab it, but we couldn’t, we couldn’t, Huma, because none of us had any hands.
(beat)
Even I didn’t. Neither did the emperor. Everyone had lost their hands. And so we couldn’t grip the giant cloth, and then the aeroplats came and they destroyed Tajmahal instantly, and the rest of Hindustan began to burn.
Awkward beat.
HUMAYUN: So do you want to hear my good news?
BABUR: Sure.
HUMAYUN: You’re gonna like this.
BABUR: Okay.
HUMAYUN: I’m still in shock about it.
BABUR: Yeah?
HUMAYUN: Where do I begin?
BABUR: I don’t know.
HUMAYUN: So . . .
BABUR: Yeah?
HUMAYUN: I was speaking with my father.
BABUR: Yeah??
HUMAYUN: Because we carried out our duties last night with such . . . efficiency . . . And also because we cleaned up so well—they were really impressed with how well we cleaned up—my father has told me that you and I . . . are assigned to the Imperial Harem.
(beat)
We’re on Harem duty.
BABUR: Harem Duty?
HUMAYUN: Harem Duty.
BABUR: We get to go into the Imperial Harem?!
HUMAYUN: See? This is how it goes . . . People notice. Elders notice. We did our job last night and we cleaned up so well—they were really impressed with the clean up job—and now we get to accompany the Emperor himself to the Harem. And Guard him. In the HAREM.
BABUR: That’s amazing!
HUMAYUN: Weren’t you just saying you wanted to see the inside of the Harem before you die?
BABUR: I was.
HUMAYUN: And here we go!
BABUR: Your father is the best.
HUMAYUN: It wasn’t because of my father! It was because we carried out our duties so well!
BABUR: Sure yeah. I mean, that too.
When?
HUMAYUN: Tomorrow.
BABUR: Tomorrow?!
HUMAYUN: No more Dawn Watch.
BABUR: Tomorrow!
HUMAYUN: Big blammo promotion, bhai.
BABUR: We’re on Harem Duty.
HUMAYUN: No: We are Personal Guards to the Emperor in the Imperial Harem.
I love saying that.
BABUR: What do we do? How do we do it? Why do we do it? How does one do Harem Duty?
HUMAYUN: We accompany the Emperor from the palace to the Imperial Harem. And then we follow him wherever he goes in the Harem. And we stand at either side of him when he sits at the royal desk.
BABUR: Naked women!
HUMYAUN: If there are naked women—which I highly doubt—we can’t look or touch or even acknowledge them unless it is in service of the emperor himself.
BABUR: Or what?
HUMAYUN: Or what what?
BABUR: Say I meet a nice girl in there and we—
HUMAYUN: You get executed. So don’t do that.
BABUR: The Imperial Harem!
HUMAYUN: You understand, this is unprecedented.
BABUR: Yeah!
HUMAYUN: It’s a reward. Everyone knew last night was a shit job. And we did it and we did it well and we did not complain, so . . . Harem Duty.
(beat)
You understand that, right?
BABUR: Yeah, sure, I do.
HUMAYUN: We do not always get pleasant tasks.
BABUR: Of course not.
HUMAYUN: But we work our way to the better tasks, the more pleasant tasks.
BABUR: Of course.
HUMAYUN: You understand how this works, right?
BABUR: Yes! I understand! Why do you keep asking me that?
HUMAYUN: Because sometimes I think you don’t understand.
>
BABUR: I get it! We do shit jobs first, and then we get better jobs, so long as we do the shit jobs well and without complaint.
HUMAYUN: Exactly.
BABUR: Not complicated.
HUMAYUN: Exactly.
(awkward beat)
You just seemed . . . last night . . .
BABUR: I seemed what?
HUMAYUN: You seemed . . .
BABUR: Like what?
HUMAYUN: You seemed like you didn’t understand that.
Beat.
BABUR: I had a rough night.
HUMAYUN: Okay, well, you’re not allowed to have a rough night, Mister.
BABUR: I’m embarrassed, okay?
(beat)
I’m embarrassed by how I acted last night, Huma, I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to . . .
I couldn’t stop . . .
(beat; he gets angry)
You got to cauterize them!
HUMAYUN: This again? Chopping was not worse than cauterizing!
BABUR: It was different . . .
HUMAYUN: Let’s not fight about this.
BABUR: The point is . . .
The point is . . .
There is no point.
I’m sorry.
I should have been stronger.
Long beat.
HUMAYUN: (changes his tact; is kind)
You were strong.
You are strong.
You’re here, this morning, at your post, on time for the first time in your life. After nightmares, and after last night.
You’re strong, Babur.
The point is, you need to stop thinking about it and you need to stop talking about it.
BABUR: Stop thinking. Stop talking.
HUMAYUN: You’re lucky we’re old friends, old pals. Some other bastard would’ve already pegged you for a traitor or a bitch, and then what? Words spread out across the guard and pop! you have a traitorous bitch of a reputation, and that’s not good. Reputations stain deeper than blood.
BABUR: You didn’t tell anyone . . .?
HUMAYUN: Of course I didn’t.
You’re my bhai.
(beat)
But stop thinking about it and stop talking about it and let’s just enjoy our good fortune here, Babu . . . Imperial Harem. You and me. Standing guard, right next to the emperor.
BABUR: Right next to him?
HUMAYUN: Maybe a little behind, just a shred. So we don’t impede his vision, etcetera.
BABUR: Just a little behind.
HUMAYUN: The emperor himself, Most Supreme Glorious Ruler of Hindustan, Shah Jahan, son of Jahangir, son of Akbar, son of Humayun—
BABUR: —Your namesake . . .
HUMAYUN: My namesake . . . son of Babur. Your namesake.
BABUR: My namesake.
HUMAYUN: Babur, first Mughal Emperor of Hindustan. The Royal Line! And who’s there to the left and the right?
BABUR: You and me.
HUMAYUN: Me and you. Standing proud, regal as the Man himself. Protecting him. Daring some piss-shit fellow to come at him with ill intentions.
(imitating sounds of efficient violence)
Swach! Swaah! Sccccck!
Done. Bingho-bangho, sent to the grave. Quick-stuffed.
BABUR: Yeah!
HUMAYUN: Yeah. It takes years to make these strides. Years. But a job like last night’s doesn’t come along that often. We have an honest battle story, bhai. From now until we’re old and grey, we’ll be telling our sons and grandsons about the night of the Forty Thousand Hands.
BABUR: I thought we were supposed to stop thinking, stop talking . . .
HUMAYUN: Stop thinking, stop talking like you are.
BABUR: Like me . . .
HUMAYUN: Yeah, like how you are thinking and talking with this air of regret.
BABUR: Regret.
HUMAYUN: Yeah. Regret. I’m saying, brag about it.
BABUR: (sad, but trying to put on a good face) You’re right.
HUMAYUN: Right?
BABUR: Absolutely. Brag. I cut off forty thousand hands! Ho!
HUMAYUN: Imperial Harem, bhai.
BABUR: Standing right next to the emperor.
HUMAYUN: Or a shred behind him so as to not impede his view.
BABUR: Standing a shred behind him. Guarding him. Guarding Shah Jahan.
HUMAYUN: Proud as cocks.
BABUR: I won’t be late.
HUMAYUN: You better not be late.
BABUR: Women everywhere in the Harem.
HUMAYUN: And eunuchs.
BABUR: Those poor bastards.
HUMAYUN: And the King.
BABUR: And Us. Standing just a little bit behind him.
(starts to realize something)
Just a shred behind . . . the emperor.
Right behind him.
Him, sitting right there. At the Royal Desk.
Me, just a little behind . . .
A shred behind him.
A shred behind him . . .
HUMAYUN: Yeah. Why are you saying it like that?
BABUR: (realizing at this moment) Humayun!
HUMAYUN: What?
BABUR: I have an idea.
HUMAYUN: Okay.
BABUR: Hear me out.
HUMAYUN: Okay.
BABUR: You probably won’t like it at first.
HUMAYUN: Just tell me.
BABUR: But if you just give it a second.
HUMAYUN: An invention?
BABUR: No. Yes. Maybe. A little bit of that.
So . . .
We’re at the Imperial Harem. Tomorrow.
HUMAYUN: Yeah.
BABUR: And we’re standing just a shred behind the Emperor at the Royal Desk.
HUMAYUN: Just a shred behind him.
BABUR: And so . . . at one point, when maybe nobody else is in the room . . . we’ll make a secret signal to each other.
HUMAYUN: What kind of secret signal?
BABUR: Something really subtle.
HUMAYUN: We can’t move, though.
BABUR: We’ll figure something out.
HUMAYUN: Why are we making the secret signal?
BABUR: I’m getting to that . . .
HUMAYUN: Okay.
BABUR: When we do, make the secret signal, you grab the emperor’s head, pull it back, and then I’ll slice his neck wide fucking open.
HUMAYUN: Wait . . . say again?
BABUR: Let’s kill the King.
HUMAYUN: Whoa . . . WHAT!? What the hell are you talking about?
What did you just say!?
BABUR: You said you were gonna hear me out.
HUMAYUN: You can’t say that, and you can’t mean that, and and and . . . LOOK: I’m going to let you shut your treasonous face and take up your position and we’ll never speak of it again.
BABUR: I didn’t realize it until just now, but this is the only thing to do.
HUMAYUN: Please . . . Don’t go crazy. Don’t go crazy on me, Babur . . .
BABUR: Not crazy. Listen. First of all, I killed Beauty.
HUMAYUN: You didn’t kill beauty!
BABUR: Okay, we killed Beauty. We did, okay?
HUMAYUN: No, shut up, okay! It is fine to have a philosophical conversation about aesthetics, but you just threatened to kill the King!
BABUR: Yeah, I’m gonna do that. We should do it together.
HUMAYUN: Babur, please, stop! They can kill you just for saying that! You’re out of your mind!
BABUR: Nope. Thinking clearly here, bhai. Have a good sense of things here, bhai . . .
HUMAYUN: Oh, very clearly. We chop off the emperor’s head tomorrow morning . . . Then what!
BABUR: Well, that’s the rest of the plan. We exit the office, calmly, walking through the halls of the Harem. Nobody will speak to us. We leave the Harem, we go to the Royal stables, we take two horses, and then we ride out to the jungle.
HUMAYUN: That’s your plan!?
BABUR: Remember our sandalwood raft in the trees? We stayed three nights in the jun
gle! This time, we’ll make a better one, a bigger one, with a roof, and near some water, and we can hunt animals and eat them, and we could live just you and me, Huma, out in the wild . . . away from everything, away from the world. Away from the King and your father and the rules, and far away from the memory of what we did. Nobody will ever make us do anything again.
Wouldn’t that be good?
HUMAYUN: Why can’t we do that without killing the King?
BABUR: I mean, we could . . . but killing the King . . . that’s like the main part.
We kill him, so Beauty can live.
HUMAYUN: You’re crazy.
BABUR: Tell me you wouldn’t want to live out in the jungle away from the world!
HUMAYUN: I wouldn’t! Okay? That sounds awful! I don’t want to have to hunt for my food, I don’t want to sleep outside every night and I certainly don’t want to risk my neck murdering the emperor!
Babur! Wake up! Because I don’t think you actually understand anything:
There is the King. And He is at the Center.
And there are those who serve him, closely, like us, and so we are near the Center, and so our lives are good and we eat well.
And then there’s the rest of the world out there, balancing on the edge of things.
And they do not eat well.
But yesterday . . . and today . . .
If people see Tajmahal and suddenly think that this wonderful, unbelievable thing was created by 20,000 ordinary men, then they begin to wonder about changing their lives.
And if enough people do that, then the edge might come for the center. And the center could be cast away.
And then we’re fucked.
So that’s why we did this.
Your sword, my cauterizing iron, those baskets of hands . . .
This is called Keeping the Peace.
We have a good life, Babu. And I appreciate it. I like the world.
BABUR: You like the world.
HUMAYUN: Yeah.
BABUR: This world, you’re saying. You like this world . . . where we have to behand 20,000 men in one night. Where we have to kill off Beauty like a wounded animal. Where anything we might ever feel or think or say could cause us to be executed simply because the Emperor is shithouse crazy?
HUMAYUN: There is either allegiance to the Emperor, or there is death. I’m choosing Not Death. So should you. I’m sorry you can’t handle the sight of a couple gallons of blood, but grow some balls, yaar. Seriously.
BABUR: If you don’t want to help me tomorrow, that’s fine, but I am going to kill the King.
HUMAYUN: You think you can kill the King? I’ll be right on his other side, bhai. And as my oaths dictate, any man who raises a hand to His Most Glorious Emperor Shah Jahan will pay for it with his life.